A blog for the Alexandria, Virginia, Chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society.

Friday, April 3, 2015

Looking Back on the March
31st Chapter Meeting

Lots of Harmonizers arrived early this week so
they could work on the visual plan for the contest uptune.The stage was packed with guys reviewing with
Chuck McKeever.And the front row guys were hard at it in the
lobby.

There was also a lot of buzz in the building
about uniform work with the FRIENDS IN HARMONY.

Plus there were all the guys working to get the
hall set up for the meeting and refreshments ready too.Because a lot of guys came early, there was a
“run” on the cookie supply before chapter started.Glad we had them for those guys who came
right from work.

Rich
Hewitt kicked off the warm ups
this week and then turned the chorus over to director Joe Cerutti (fresh back from Brussels and judging the contest over
there).He welcomed twoS Forces singers
with us this week – TJ Donahue from
Denver and Bill Conway, from South
Carolina.

Joe also acknowledged the president of Dallas Vocal
Majority who was in town for work and came to visit us.Joe
thanked publicly the help and counsel from Greg
Clancy, the chorus director in Dallas, for his advice to our musical
leaders regarding how to be most effective in doing our recordings.

We worked on two new songs for the Sept.
American Icon show.Then Don Dillingham spoke to us and
encouraged us to be ready, to be in the moment and be enthusiastic.

Operations vp Todd Ryktarsyk conducted the chapter meeting. Chuck McKeever announced a refinement and simplification of the visual
evaluation process so it can move along faster.

Show vp Nick
Leiserson issued av thank you to the many folks who made the Aca Challenge
such a success.He reports that over 700
attended and we “beat” the budget!!

Kellen
Hertz gave details for those
singing at his sister’s wedding.

Chapter secretary Chris Buechler presented quartet registration cards to the HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES, our section leaders.This has been a registered quartet for 28 years.

Chris also presented membership renewal cards to Joel Golden for 10 years, Dave Branstetter for 10 years, Harold Weinberger for 21 years and Dennis Ritchey for 23 years.

President Terry
Reynolds mentioned the recent passing of Skip Coburn, a long-time chapter member.Terry also reports that Jean Wachter is still in a rehab center for her recovery from a
recent stroke.

Terry thanked the members for the good turnout at our
all-sectional session last Saturday.And
he reported that the chorus will not be singing at our Youth Harmony event
April 18th.TBD will
sing.Members should stay tuned and note
messages from event organizer Brad Jones about support he needs from others in
the chapter with food stuffs, errands, and such.He has over 70 youth signed up!!

Membership vp Rich Hewitt welcomed the many guests we had – several are
applicants for membership.(YeEd heard at the afterglow that two of
them passed their audition after rehearsal!!) Rich introduced our newest member Blake Albertson!

After the break, it was back to serious work on
the contest package. Choreographer Carlos
Barillo made it in from a delayed flight from Pittsburgh to help us Joe on the work on the package.

In other news, the Harmo history committee,
headed by retiring chapter historian Martin
Banks, met last week.They are
continuing to monitor collection of materials and planning to help the chapter
celebrate our 75th anniversary in 2023.A current mini-history will be coming out
soon.As a reminder – all chapter
leaders (former or current) are invited to submit collected historical documents
to the any of the committee members (Rhome,
Blair, Pitzer, Eliason, Banks). Also – if you have some historical things
but want to hold on to them for a while, be sure they are marked with
instruction for your family to pass them on to the chapter in the future.

Until next time –
editorjack!

(This message is prepared for your review if you
were there, for your information if you had to miss, and as a historical record
of the great things going on each week during the 67th year of the
Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd.